identity fraud

Selfies of Dutch teenagers posing with their just obtained driver's license are being sold on the dark web to be used for identity fraud, RTL Nieuws reports based on its own research. The broadcaster found "likely hundreds of potential victims".

On Tuesday the police and municipality of Amsterdam searched over 40 homes on Houtmankade as part of a joint action against housing fraud, money laundering, identity fraud and drug trafficking. A total of seven people were arrested, the police said in a statement.

The homes visited are all located in a housing block on Houtmankade and Houtmanstraat. The homes were visited based on signals received by the municipality.

Three people were arrested on suspicion of money laundering. Four others were arrested for hard drug possession.

The police arrested a 32-year-old man in Groningen on suspicion of computer fraud, identity fraud and money laundering. He was caught buying items online with stolen identities and then reselling them. He told the police he did so to pay off his student loan, the police said in a statement.

The man placed so-called key-loggers on two public computers at an educational institution in the city of Groningen. Key-loggers record what keys are hit on a keyboard, which gave the man access to, for example, credit card information or login details.

The number of reports about identity fraud in the Netherlands more than doubled last year, according to figures from the Identity Fraud Hotline. Last year the hotline received 1,724 reports, compared to 805 in 2015, ANP report.

The hotline can't give a clear explanation for the increase. The fact that reports can now be done online may play a role. There is also an increased awareness about ID fraud, thanks to a government campaign. "You therefore can't say that more ID fraud was committed, but that more was reported", a spokesperson said to the news wire.

Thousands of people who received a residency permit in the Netherlands after the general amnesty in 2007, lied about their identities. This was often done so that they can qualify for the amnesty, for example, because only a certain age group fell under the amnesty.

Almost 450,000 Dutch people were scammed last year on the internet. Most of these cases involve selling or buying items online. This is 3.3 percent of people aged 15 or older. In 2012, this was 2.9 percent. These figures were published by the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS) today.